It would be an attack upon the federal government, and would array the whole country against us.
Frederick Douglass: “It would be an attack upon the federal government, and would array the whole country against us.”
Editor's note · Context
In his autobiography, Douglass explains his reasoning for opposing John Brown's Harper's Ferry plan, warning of the national backlash it would provoke.
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More from Frederick Douglass
The sentiment that brings us here to-day is one of the noblest that can stir and thrill the human heart.
I believed I should get enough to eat at Covey’s, even if I suffered in other respects, and this to a hungry man is not a prospect to be regarded with indifference.
We (the people of the North) are a charitable people, and in the excess of this feeling we were disposed to put the very best construction upon the strange behavior of our southern brethren.
His iron sentences, cold and harsh, sunk like heavy weights deep into my heart, and stirred up within me a rebellion not soon to be allayed.